Abandon All Hope
by Lucky13
Summary: (Xander-centric, B/X) A visitor from the future sends the Scoobies on an adventure to Hell
1. Future Imperfect

Abandon All Hope

AUTHOR: Lucky13

EMAIL: lucky13@quixnet.net

DISCLAIMER: Joss owns most of the characters. Inspiration came from the works of Colleen McCullough, John Byrne & Chris Claremont, Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle and Phillipe Jose Farmer – I only steal from the best, you know…

JUMPING OFF POINT: Early Season Four – Post-Angel, no Anya, no Riley, no Dawn, no Tara.

DEDICATION:For Lori Bush, Bob Regent and DarkDyer; all of whom offered encouragement after reading the teaser (although it was so long ago they may not remember doing so). And also Socrates, to whom I was less than kind – please accept my apology.

CHAPTER ONE: Future Imperfect

To know David Osbourne, is to marvel at his cool. When the King of Nonplussed becomes plussed, find a mop – because the shit has most definitely hit the fan…

***************************

The apartment of Rupert Giles; September 1999, in another universe.

"It's not that I'm opposed to children, to having a child, with you – It's just…I…I…I…"

Oz was babbling.

Wow.

You don't see that everyday of the week. Shoot, any day of the week for that matter.

Xander blinked repeatedly then pinched himself, but the scene before him remained the same. 

Oz was sitting on Giles' couch, babbling like a brook. Willow or whatever had taken over her body, continued to crouch on her haunches in front of him, holding both of his hands in hers. Buffy sat stunned in an easy chair with her mouth wide open while Giles was busily trying to wear a hole in his eyeglasses with his handkerchief while standing at his kitchen counter.

"You're not listening to me, none of you are listening to me!" Willow released Oz' hands and stood up to look at each of them in turn. The change in her demeanor was startling. She looked like Willow, but she carried herself like a queen. "You're hearing my words, but not what I'm saying. We don't have time for this! You must all prepare for the journey ahead – "

Giles cleared his throat, and squinted as he put his glasses back on. "W-Willow, you must realize that this is quite a lot to take in, a-a-all at once. You say that you're from the future?"

"I am from the future – "

"You don't look like you're from the future" Buffy piped in.

"Yeah, aren't you supposed to be wearing some kind of silver jumpsuit? Or at least a clear plastic rain coat?" 

Four pairs of eyes turned to stare in Xander's direction.

"Nevermind…"

Willow's gaze softened as she looked at him. "Dear Xander, you always did pick the oddest moments…I'd forgotten, I…" She seemed lost for a moment. Xander felt a chill run down his spine. Maybe 'run down' was the wrong word. It felt like an icy caterpillar was making love to his nervous system. Her eyes spoke volumes, but in a language he couldn't begin to understand. No wonder Oz was freaking. She was Willow but she wasn't. Those eyes knew pain and wisdom and the price that must be paid…

Her eyes turned steely once more as they slowly traveled the faces of the SG. It was like her 'resolve face' lifted by a power of ten…Or maybe a thousand. "Only my mind has traveled into the past. Bringing my body along would have cost too much power, power I will most desperately need. Please, we're wasting time, precious time."

Buffy's mouth moved and some vowel sounds tumbled out before her words finally took shape, "I…We all…I think…Believe…Right, guys?" Her eyes sought Xander's for a moment after getting no response from looking at the still stunned Oz

"Uh…All right" Giles removed his perfectly clean glasses and started cleaning them again. "L-L-Let's review. You say that you are Willow and that you're from some ten years in the future – "

"One possible future, yes"

"And you've come back in time in order to save your daughter."

"Her name is Alexa." Willow glanced sideways at Xander for a moment before smiling at Oz, "Alexa Osbourne." 

"You need to save her because she was kidnapped – "

"Demonic forces have taken my child – our child. She must be saved. Not just for her sake, or mine. She has a destiny. As the child of a witch and a werewolf, she has been marked by the Powers That Be. She will either be a force for great good or great evil. That is why she was taken. The continued existence of all possible Earths is at stake."

Xander found his tongue, "But why the time travel, Wills?" 

"Because time is of the essence. Alexa was taken to another dimension. A dimension where time runs differently than any of the more Earth-like dimensions. If I had just gone to that dimension, I would have already have been too late. Alexa must be saved at the moment she arrives in that dimension. To do otherwise risks everything. By coming back in time before travelling to that dimension – "

Buffy piped in; "We can save her before anything happens to her."

"Exactly, yes Buffy. I knew you'd understand."

Giles put his glasses back on, "But Willow, which dimension was she taken to? And how will we get there?"

"I have memorized the requisite spells to open the portal."

"Dimensional transportation is no walk in the park. The power required – "

"Giles, I have that power. You must remember that I have been a practicing witch for some time now. I can get us there…" Willow paused and once more looked at each Scooby in turn. "But I cannot make you go. The danger is great. If the danger in not going were not even greater, I would not ask this of you, any of you. You must each make this decision of your own free will. But you must make it now. "

She stopped talking, and the only sound was the ticking of Giles' clock on the mantelpiece. 

Oz stood up and walked over to Willow. She looked at him, a touch of trepidation in her eyes for the first time. She was afraid, afraid of what he might say. He took her hands and stared into her eyes for a long moment. Finally, he spoke.

"Are you really my Willow?"

"Yes Oz, I am"

"Where's the other Willow, the Willow from the present?"

"She is here, in this body."

"Can I speak to her?"

"N-n-no. Not while I am in possession. She is here, but it's…It's as though she were sleeping. In fact, when I leave, she will awaken, and the events that transpire during my visit will seem like a dream to her."

Oz released one of her hands and turned to look at the others. "She's not lying, at least I don't think so."

"How can you tell, Oz?" Buffy asked.

"The wolf," he said, tapping an index finger to the side of his nose. "When people lie, their smell changes."

"Are you sure?" asked Giles.

"As sure as I can be." He turned to give Willow a little smile. "I believe her." He turned back to the others, "And I am most definitely going."

"Me too, I'm in." Buffy smiled as she got up to walk over to them. Willow let go of Oz' hand to take Buffy into a hug.

Xander studied her face. It was a definite Willow-face. A tiny tear had slid down her cheek. She let go of Buffy and wiped it away as they looked at each other. That was all Xander needed to see. He stood up and walked over to the others.

"Me three! It's not every day a guy gets to go to another dimension to save a child that hasn't been born yet." That earned him a grateful Willow-hug of his very own.

The four exchanged smiles for a moment, then realized that the fifth Scooby was notable in his absence. As one, they turned to look at Giles who was once more attacking his glasses with his handkerchief. He felt the weight of their stares. He sighed and slipped his glasses back into place. 

"Oh, very well. But I want you all to know that I think that a little research is in order before we depart – "

"Yes Giles," Willow spoke, "Bring your books, but only a few, only what you can carry. Bring weapons and food, all of you. I can open the portal, and transport us, but we will have a journey to make once we get to the other side. Go, all of you, gather your things. We will meet again in one hour at the school."

"The school?" Buffy asked, "Which school, UC Sunnydale?"

"No Buffy, the High School." Willow answered.

"Good 'ol Sunnydale High?" Xander questioned, "Wills, its in ruins. We blew it up, remember?"

"That which we seek cannot be destroyed by any explosion."

The silence was thunderous.

"Oh…" Oz understated.

"Good Lord." Giles muttered to himself.

"Oh boy." Said Xander in a tiny voice

"You've got to be kidding." Buffy cracked.

"Yes, we seek the Mouth of Hell."


	2. Into the Hellmouth!

TITLE: Abandon All Hope 

AUTHOR: Lucky13

EMAIL: lucky13@quixnet.net

DISCLAIMER: Joss owns most of the characters. Inspiration came from the works of Colleen McCullough, John Byrne & Chris Claremont, Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle and Phillipe Jose Farmer – I only steal from the best, you know…

JUMPING OFF POINT: Early Season Four – Post-Angel, no Anya, no Riley, no Dawn, no Tara.

DEDICATION:Daniel Steele, who also gave feedback on the teaser (And who has also probably forgotten doing so). I can't talk though, I forgot him in the first dedication (Doh!). All for the good, I think, the teaser gave away too much anyway. Also dedicated to Bill Haden, Luther Church, Matt Hutton, the Great and Terrible Ozmandayus and once more the incomparable Lori Bush!

CHAPTER TWO: Into the Hellmouth!

There's a quote I think I remember from high school. It's from a play called 'J.B.' by a man named Archibald Macleish (I think). "If God is God, he is not good. If God is good, he is not God." Don't know why I just thought of that, but I did…

****************************************

The ruins of Sunnydale High School, September 1999, in another universe.

The smell, Oh my God, the stench…that was once upon a time called Sunnydale High. 

'Guh' Xander's brain crawled, 'I just stepped in some more mayor-meat.'

Ordinarily, Xander would have let that comment start a cascade of inappropriateness. You know, just some general wackiness to lighten the mood. A little Xander-nonsense to help keep everybody's spirits up, and (let's face it) drive away some of the butterflies that were swarming in his own stomach. Xander always looked at it as part of his job description. He was the Comic Relief of the Scoobies, and he saw no shame in that. 

But right now…There was a feeling in his bones…This business was too serious…Heart attack serious…Even for a gang that stopped the Apocalypse on regular basis, this was serious.

Xander shifted the strap of his duffel bag where it was cutting into his shoulder and soldiered on.

Willow and Oz were in the lead, holding hands and talking softly together. Xander felt a twinge of old jealousy just looking at them. Maybe it was being back in the unhallowed halls of their Alma Mater. Although, looking around, it was hard to equate this over-sized demon barbecue pit with a place of learning.

"Ol' Sun-ny-dale, we-sing-to-thee, our-praise-of-victory!"

Xander's off-key singing voice echoed strangely in the deserted hallway. For a split second, he damned his twisted sense of humor. From one moment to the next, he hadn't known that he was going to attempt a joke, let alone sing part of their School Song. Heck, what kind of dork even remembers his School Song, anyway! Xander braced for glares and stares from his fellow Scoobies.

Whew! Smiles all-round, even Giles looked amused. Score one for the Comic Relief!

For a moment the dread had retreated, but there it was, back again for more. No getting around it, they were in the soup this time. The gang that had stood vigil at a portal to Hell for over three years was doing something unheard of; they were going to open the door themselves. More than that, they were going to go through that door. It was all a little crazy if you thought about it too long…

The glowing ball of sunlight that Willow the Not So Teenage Witch had summoned was no longer bobbing down the hallway. It hovered before a well remembered double doorway. 

The Library…They were here.

"All hope abandon, Ye who enter in…" Quoted Giles under his breath.

"What?" asked Buffy, "What did you say?"

"Dante's Inferno?" Giles looked at Buffy expectantly, like he was hoping to jog her memory. Finally, he gave up and rolled his eyes a little. "Forgive me, I keep forgetting about the woeful state of the American educational system."

Willow spoke up, "Don't worry Buffy. If I remember correctly, you'll hit it sometime this year in your Freshman Lit course. "You kept asking the instructor about extra credit."

There was a beat of silence before Oz' low voice seduced them into listening.

"Through me the way to the City of Woe,

Through me the way to forsaken people,

Through me the way to sorrow eternal.

Justice moved my sublime Creator,

Here I was raised by the power Divine,

Primal love and the highest wisdom. 

Before me there were no things created

But those things Eternal, beyond time I stand,

Abandon all hope if you enter here."

There was another beat of silence. 

Willow gave a small sigh before turning her attention to the extra-large rotting chunk of Hizonner the Giant Snake that was blocking their way into the Library. She waved a hand and muttered a word in ancient Greek. The side of Wilkins slid down the hall leaving a trail of slime like an over large banana slug.

Giles was giving Oz the smile of a happy parent. "Interesting translation there, I don't believe I've ever heard it before." 

"Oh, I combined a couple different versions. I thought it might make a cool lyric. Kinda dark, but that was back in my Goth stage."

With that, werewolf and Watcher turned to help Willow who was trying to force open the sticky library door by hand. 

Good to know she didn't use magic for everything, a little voice whispered in the back of Xander's brain. 

Meanwhile, the front of Xander's brain was freaking. He felt like the world was vibrating, so much that his teeth should be rattling.

The depth of his wigging was etched in his face; his eyes were troubled and his mouth dangled slightly open. He turned to look at Buffy. 

As if her face was a mirror, she reflected his wigging. The two of them communicated without words. Slayer and Zeppo looked at each other for a long moment, both knowing that the other was thinking the exact same thing.

'My God, what have we stepped into this time?'

Then the others forced the door, and they all entered the Library.

There wasn't much left, most of the room was gone. What was left made Giles think of an archaeological dig, with each level representing a different age, a different society that had left its mark only to be replaced by the next one. 

For each of the Scoobies, the moment was different. Each one's eye sought a piece of the room that related to a memory.

Willow looked up at the remnants of the Mezzanine floor, where she first saw Xander kiss Cordelia and a part of her childhood died.

Giles saw the ruins of his checkout desk and thought of showing a tiny slip of a Slayer a heavy tome titled VAMPYR.

Oz thought of cold naked mornings waking up on the floor of the book cage, but the cage was gone along with the wall it stood next to.

Xander's foot kicked a charred Dewey Decimal card while his thoughts touched on Valentine's Day and a present unopened.

Buffy looked down through the gaping hole in the center of the room. Her mind on the fountain pool of the ruined Mission Church, she thought about drowning and the first breath of a second chance.

In a moment, the spell of reverie was broken, and the five got down to business.

Willow and Giles got with the portal spell preparation, while Buffy, Xander and Oz broke out the weapons. 

Buffy had a huge gym bag open on the ground and it looked like she had cleaned out her weapons trunk entirely. She pulled out a battle-axe and her favorite cross bow, a few bottles of holy water and a pair of crosses and Mr. Pointy. Everything but the battle-axe went into her backpack along with her spare quarrel of cross bow bolts. She looked up at Xander and Oz.

"Giles is already set, I asked him on the way here. You guys need anything?"

"I got these." Oz held up a Super-Squirter and a large wooden cross. "I topped off at St. Mark's on the way over."

Buffy smiled, "Well, take the rest of my holy water, just in case. How about you, Xander?"

Xander had stripped off his jacket to reveal his Army-Guy fatigues from Halloween underneath. "I'm good, got cross, a couple of stakes and I liberated this from Uncle Rory's garage." Xander pulled a Mossberg 12-gauge pump-action shotgun from his duffel. "Got a ton of shells, too."

Xander hefted his backpack as proof.

Buffy frowned, "Xander we're demon hunting, not duck hunting."

"I thought we were wabbit hunting?" Xander gave it his best Elmer Fudd. That earned him a one grade-A Slayer smile.

"Very funny, but don't you want a cross bow?"

"Um, to tell you the truth, I've never quite gotten the hang of 'em. I like the odds better with this," he patted the stock affectionately. "More likely to hit something."

"Okay, just be careful with it, okay?"

"Sure"

Giles and Willow announced that the spell was ready to be cast. The five took up their positions; each marked on the floor with chalk. Willow closed her eyes and began to chant in an ancient tongue that only Giles could understand. She chanted faster and faster until it sounded like she was singing. 

Suddenly, a brilliant scarlet light began to emanate from the Wiccan. It beamed across the Hellmouth at Buffy then she began to glow as well. From Buffy it bounced across to Giles, then to Xander and at last to Oz then back to Willow, forming a brilliant scarlet pentagram shaped in beams of light. Each Scoobie felt the hair rise up on their heads as they crackled with a mystical static charge. They grew dizzy and the cave walls wavered as if they were obscured by a heat mirage in a desert. 

The red glow of the spell was everywhere they looked now, like a giant bubble, both surrounding them and penetrating them to their very bones. They felt themselves levitate upwards now, their feet no longer touching the ground. They levitated toward each other, until they joined hands, dangling over the Hellmouth inside the scarlet bubble. 

Xander looked over at Buffy and caught her eye. He smiled tentative encouragement and she smiled back. They were thrumming now, every molecule humming. There was a sound in the air, a high pitched keening sound that filled and echoed in their minds.

Then the scarlet bubble of Willow's spell dropped downward into La Boca Del Inferno. The wall between the dimensions grew thin and they popped through.

The Scoobies had gone to hell.


	3. Changes

TITLE: Abandon All Hope 

AUTHOR: Lucky13

EMAIL: lucky13@quixnet.net

DISCLAIMER: Joss owns most of the characters. Inspiration came from the works of Colleen McCullough, John Byrne & Chris Claremont, Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle and Phillipe Jose Farmer – I only steal from the best, you know…

JUMPING OFF POINT: Early Season Four – Post-Angel, no Anya, no Riley, no Dawn, no Tara.

DEDICATION: Ray (the one and only Wicked Raygun), Jonathon (AKA White Werewolf), Chorlton, Matt Hutton, Bill Haden, and the lovely and talented Ms. Lori Bush.

CHAPTER Three: Changes

The Plain of Jars, Hell.

There was no sensation of movement, really. In fact, there was no sensation at all.

One moment, they were one with Willow's spell, caught up in the crimson bands of energy. 

The next, they were just standing there. 

They weren't holding hands. They weren't looking at each other. They weren't anything. They were just…there. Not really aware of themselves, nor aware of each other. They were standing in Hell, staring at the sky.

It wasn't like any sky they'd seen in their lifetimes; it really didn't look like the sky at all. But their brains told them it must be the sky because it was not the ground. It was completely featureless. No sun, no moon, no stars, no clouds, no colors, no…nothing. It was a nothing; the sky was a big nothing.

But there was wind, and the wind was cold.

Maybe that was the sensation that finally brought them back to themselves and each other. Afterwards, none of them could say how it happened, but something hit the reset button. 

There was a moment of sudden self-awareness, of hearing yourself breathing, of knowing that you were alive…

Oz gave out a keening howl. Buffy, Giles and Xander turned to look at him. He was kneeling on the ground, his head bent over something – someone – it was Willow.

It was Willow, it must be Willow, but it was not the Willow they knew. Her hair was a deeper shade of red, and it was longer and thicker than before. It lay next to her on the ground, but looking at it Xander knew that if she stood up it would reach well past her waist. She was dressed in a long flowing gown of shimmering green that brought out the alabaster of her skin. And she was older, and she was beautiful…too beautiful…except for the blood.

Blood trickled from both her nostrils. She was breathing shallowly through her mouth and there was blood there as well. Her eyes were closed; she was unconscious.

Xander fell to his knees beside her, "Oz, is she alright?" Xander reached out to touch her face with his hand, and Oz growled at him. He crouched over Willow and bared his fangs.

Xander recoiled. His eyes were wide and they stared at Oz without blinking

"Oh my God," Xander said, "Oz!"

Oz was not exactly Oz; he was the wolf. No…He was half a wolf; he was half wolf and half Oz. 

Hair covered his hands and face, his fingernails were long and claw-like, and his mouth was a mess of fangs. That was the wolf, but he was Oz, too. Unlike his monthly condition, there was a light of some reason and recognition in his eyes. He seemed to know who he was, and who the others were. He just didn't want Xander to touch his Willow. 

He carefully gathered the unconscious Willow in his arms and he began to croon softly. His gnarled hand gently touched her cheek. There was a glitter of tears in his eyes, and wolves don't cry. He looked up at the others with tortured eyes and his crooning whine deepened into a guttural moan. Once more he bared his fangs at them.

Xander leaned back on his heels. He wasn't afraid exactly, but he didn't what to do either. Then Buffy crouched beside him. She slowly raised a hand out to Oz palm down, and she spoke to him in a low soothing voice, "Oz? We no hurt Willow, Oz. We friends Oz, we friends." Oz raised his head to sniff in the direction of her hand, then he seemed to relax and he turned his attention back to the stricken Willow.

'Good job, Buff' Xander thought, 'but what's with the me-Tarzan-you-Jane?' Then Xander turned his head and really looked at Buffy for the first time. His mouth gaped some more. Then Giles spoke and said what they both were thinking, "Good Lord, Buffy!"

She was primal, a wild little animal herself. She was nearly naked, just a bra and loincloth hacked out of what looked like rough, uncured leather. There was a long, wicked-looking stone knife tucked in the belt-like piece of leather that held up her loincloth. Her skin was a dusky light brown; Xander wasn't sure how much was tanned skin and how much was dirt. There was certainly dirt under her ragged fingernails, and her hair was matted nearly into dreadlocks. On her face, there was a band of charcoal painted across her eyelids. It covered her from eyebrows to just above her cheekbones, like the mask of a raccoon. But as different as she looked, how she moved was even more startling. There was a coiled power in her limbs, like a panther ready to strike. She was a perfect little savage; beautiful, wild, and untamed. 

She felt the weight of Xander's eyes. As she turned to look at him, her head tilted to one side and her blue-green eyes flashed. Xander's heart leaped in his chest just looking at her. Then she spoke, "Xander, what wrong?" 

"I – I – I…You! You're so, so…oh boy!"

"Steady Xander. W-W-We've got to stay calm, there must be a l-l-logical explanation for all this!"

Xander tore his eyes from One Million BC Buffy to look at Giles, 'Oh God, not him too!'

Giles was Giles, glasses and all. But his tweedy clothes were gone; instead, he had on a heavy brown robe with a cowl. And his hair…The top of his head was completely bald. What hair he still had was just a thin ring around his head. He looked like Friar Tuck.

"Giles, your hair!"

Giles blinked repeatedly then reached a tentative hand up to touch the top of his head. As he felt his baldpate, his eyes (already wide) grew wider still. "Good Lord! My hair!"

"Giles – "

"A tonsure mark?"

"Why do you look like Friar Tuck?"

"You're not one to talk!"

"Huh?"

"You should have a look at yourself before you go making comments."

Terrified, Xander slowly raised his hands before his eyes. As he did so he wondered why his arms were so heavy, but he had his answer soon enough. His hands were covered in heavy leather gloves with gauntlets that reached almost halfway to his elbows. He was still wearing his Army fatigues, but they were ripping apart at the seams from the bulk underneath. Through the rips, Xander saw a glint of metal. Xander stood up in a hurry and looked down at himself. From the waist down he was still Army-guy, with his green fatigue pants and combat boots. But above that he had gone medieval. Xander took off the tattered fatigue shirt to reveal a heavy chain mail shirt covered by a sleeveless white tunic emblazoned with a large Red Cross. A wide leather belt gathered the tunic at his waist and on his left hip there was a long scabbard sporting the hilt of a broadsword. As he gaped at his own transformation, Xander felt extra weight on his head and neck. Xander took off his gloves to feel his head. It too was covered in chain metal by a cowl that fell to his shoulders. Feeling a little claustrophobic, Xander pushed the cowl back and felt his head. Whew! His hair was intact, no surprise haircut. 

Xander looked back at the Watcher, who couldn't seem to stop rubbing his bare scalp with his hand. "Giles, what's happened to us?"

Before Giles could answer, Buffy suddenly appeared between them and pointed back at the others. "Giles, Xander! Look Willow, look Willow!"

The Witch was beginning to stir. She still lay prone in Oz' arms, but her eyelids were fluttering and her head rolled to one side. Buffy moved to her side in a single liquid movement, Xander and Giles shambled after her, feeling awkward and clumsy in their new clothes.

Willow groaned and then mumbled a few words. Giles and Xander looked at one another and shook their heads; neither had understood her. Now her eyes fluttered open completely. Her head groped about until her eyes landed on Giles. With what looked like a tremendous effort, she moaned out a few words, "G-G-Giles…The brazier…Hurry…" 

Giles looked like he had been goosed by an electric shock, "Good Lord, I forgot completely!" He immediately began to paw into his book bag. "I'm a fool, a bloody fool!" He pulled out a small, bronze brazier and began placing various herbs and magical substances into it. Then he pulled out a book of matches. He tried again and again to get one to strike, but there was never more than a wisp of smoke. Xander got down on his knees next to him to help block the wind. Giles seemed to become more and more desperate with every match that failed to light. Then Willow spoke, "Giles…To me…Bring it…To me."

Giles shuffled over to Willow, staying on his knees, his eyes never leaving the brazier, which he carried with careful hands. He gently set it on the ground next to Willow. Willow's eyes narrowed as concentration furrowed her brow. Fingers wide, she gestured a hand at the brazier, "Incindiere!" The brazier immediately flamed into life. Willow groaned and fell backward into Oz' arms. The Wolf keened and whimpered, rocking her gently back and forth. 

Giles fell back on his haunches and heaved a sigh of relief. Xander put a hand on his elbow, "Giles, what was that all about?"

"Willow explained it to me before she cast the transport spell. The brazier is a beacon; as long as it stays alight it will keep alive the remnants of her original spell, and we will have a way home."

"But what if it goes out?"

"Willow doubted very much if she would have the power to cast such a demanding spell from scratch twice in a short period. God willing, we won't have to find out."

"Great. But what about us, why do we all look so different?"

"I have no idea, Willow mentioned nothing of the sort. But such questions will have to wait until she wakes up again, I must tend to her." Giles turned back to Willow. Oz gave a half-hearted growl and looked at Giles with suspicious eyes. Giles held out both his hands to him, "Oz, you know me, you know I'd never hurt Willow. Please, let me help her." Oz nodded his shaggy head and relaxed his hold on Willow. Giles' hands lightly touched her forehead, and then he turned his head, "Xander, my bag!"

Xander fetched the Watcher's bag. Giles took out a heavy leather-bound tome and gently slid it under Willow's head as a pillow. Then he pressed three fingers to Willow's neck to check her carotid pulse. "She's a bit thready, but her heart is beating steadily. We've got to keep her warm or she'll slide into shock. Xander, your tunic! Quickly man!"

Xander understood. He scrambled to his feet and clawed at the knot of his belt loop. When it was free, he dropped the belt, scabbard and broadsword to the ground and swiftly pulled the heavy tunic over his head and handed it to Giles. Giles carefully draped the tunic over Willow's body and touched her cheek again.

"We still need to get her temperature up. That brazier is too small to produce any significant heat, what we need is a fire."

Buffy had been crouching beside Oz this whole time, absently stroking the back of his hairy neck, when she perked up at Giles' words. "Fire need wood. Buffy get wood. Fire help Willow!" Like a deer she sprang away, moving with an animal's grace. In an instant, she was at the top of the small rolling hill that gave the Scoobies some shelter from the wind. Xander saw a flash of her blond mane being whipped by the wind, and then her tiny moccasined feet sped her from view.

"Blast the girl! Xander, go after her! She has nothing but that stone knife and God knows what state of mind she's in. Hurry!"

Xander scrambled over and grabbed his shotgun where it lay on the ground. How it got there, he couldn't say, it had been slung across his back when Willow cast the spell. Xander didn't have time for rhetorical questions; he reached into his backpack for a handful of Double-X buckshot shells and took off after the Wild Slayer.


	4. This Savage Place

TITLE: Abandon All Hope 

AUTHOR: Lucky13

EMAIL: lucky13@quixnet.net

DISCLAIMER: Joss owns most of the characters. Inspiration came from the works of Dante Alighieri, Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle, John Byrne & Chris Claremont, Colleen McCullough and Phillipe Jose Farmer – I only steal from the best, you know…

JUMPING OFF POINT: Early Season Four – Post-Angel, no Anya, no Riley, no Dawn, no Tara.

DEDICATION: First, a special acknowledgement to Messrs. Niven and Pournelle. Their descriptions of Hell have been appropriated by moi from their Hugo and Nebula award-winning adaptation of Dante's masterpiece, also entitled "_Inferno"_. I changed their words a little to suit my purposes, but a goodly portion of the description in this chapter is rightfully theirs. 

MORE IMPORTANTLY (at least to me) the people providing the fuel for this chapter: THE Wicked Raygun, THE White Werewolf, THE Jennifer Hallmark, THE Ozmandayus (whose writing style has definitely affected my own), and some kind of wonderful, silly person named Lori Bush ;)

CHAPTER Four: This Savage Place

The Plain of Jars, Hell.

Xander reached the top of the hill and looked towards the general direction he had seen Buffy disappear in. The Eternal Wind of Hell whipped into him, cold, sharp and friendless. Once more his brain boggled for a moment at the sight of the sky-that-was-not-a-sky. With no sun or moon to provide it, where did the light come from? Xander put another pointless question from his mind to concentrate on his immediate problem; finding Buffy. His eyes scanned about as he fed his handful of shotgun shells into the magazine of Rory's Mossberg. 

With only eternal twilight to see by, it took a few moments to find her. But there she was, moving with preternatural stealth and grace. She didn't look like she was moving too fast, but she was already what seemed a half-mile away. She was obviously heading for a tree standing alone on another hill some distance away. Xander slung the Mossberg on his shoulder and trotted after her.

With the weight of the chain mail, Xander expected to be out of breath in no time, but he wasn't. His legs swung easily and rhythmically beneath him. He felt good, his muscles wonderfully strong. Maybe there had been some physical change to him after all, like Giles' hair job? In any case, Xander felt like he could increase his pace without getting winded, so he did.

As he loped easily along, the gap between him and the Cave Slayer no longer increased, and it even began to close a bit. Xander relaxed his vigilance slightly, to gather in the surroundings.

He was in the midst of a plain made up of small gently undulating brown hills. The grass was brown, and so were the scrubby bushes nestled here and there in the lee of the small hills. Stark trees like the one Buffy was heading for stood out like lonesome scarecrows in a field already harvested of its corn. 

Some distance to the left, the hills grew higher and more pronounced. Xander blinked his eyes repeatedly. There were these small white dots moving about the hills, and Xander could have sworn they were people. He couldn't really tell what they were doing, but there were a lot of them, and they swarmed this way and that over the hills. Beyond that, the hills ran up against a high wall that stretched in both directions as far as the eye could see. It seemed straight as a mathematician's line, but he could sense the slightest of inward curves just before it vanished into the deep gloom. There was something wrong with the perspective, but Xander couldn't precisely tell what, just that it didn't seem right.

To the right the low hills gave way to a wide mud flat that stretched for about a mile. The hills and the mud flats formed a wide strip between the wall and a fast moving river of water as black as ink. The river was miles away and it didn't seem very wide at that distance. Xander could see it perfectly, another perceptual distortion because it was too far away for the details he could make out. 

Beyond the river were open fields and white Mediterranean villas, walled complexes with a squat classical look to them, some quite large. They weren't arranged in any order, and the effect was very…pleasing…which to Xander was very strange. 'What the heck is that?' he thought, 'Hell's time-share condo?' Xander turned his head to look back at the wall.

Not very high, he thought. High enough to be trouble climbing, perhaps two or three times his six-foot height, but he was hampered by the perspective problem. The nearest point to the wall might have been two miles or ten, but ten seemed ridiculous.

Xander felt he had been sightseeing too long so he looked ahead for Buffy. He panicked for a moment because she wasn't in sight. Then he saw her; she was nearly to the tree. It must have been a trick of the light. No, he had been walking out of a slight depression while she was walking down one. Xander took a deep breath and sighed.

Xander's nose curled, he didn't like the smells. Fetid, with an acrid tinge, decay and sickly sweet perfume to cover the smells of death, orange blossoms mingled with hospital smells, all subtle enough that he hadn't noticed them before, but sickening all the same. Most stinks you get used to and soon don't notice, but this had too much in the blend and the blend seemed to change too often. Xander would just get used to it and then there'd be another.

Buffy was at the tree now. She looked to be gathering wood from the ground. Xander was still most of two football fields away. Xander thought about the Slayer. Much of her personality seemed intact, but the changes? Xander's heart beat faster just thinking of the look she had given him, her eyes blazing into his. Xander felt like Al Pacino in "The Godfather". "Just when I think I'm out of love with her," he whispered, to no one but himself, "She keeps pulling me back in." 

Xander wanted not to love her. Cordelia, Faith and Willow had occupied his mind for nearly two years, before it all ended so badly. Oh sure, his Buffy Thing was always in the background, but he had felt better having other objects for his affection. He could keep things straight in his head then, you know? Not think about what COULD be, or what MIGHT be, just concentrate on BEING what he actually was, Buffy's friend.

Let's face it, Buffy was…just a dream. Being in love with Buffy, that is. A happy dream, but just a dream, all the same. Being her friend was reality. It was all she wanted from him; she had made that perfectly clear. And they had a comfort level now, and Xander wasn't going to screw with that, no way. Besides, he knew he had her up on a pedestal. She was perfection; she was his hero, like he told her last week when they put that bitch Sunday in the ground. 

Having Buffy, loving Buffy, being loved by her, being her everything…It was too much to think about, it was like peeking through Heaven's door…All his hopes and dreams come true. But it was probably like Spock said to T'Pring's lover Stonn in "Amok Time"; "You may find that having is not so pleasing a thing as wanting. This is not logical, but it is often true."

But there was that one time, in the mortuary, after he staked Theresa, Buffy had…Well, she had looked at him, REALLY looked at him, like…like she wanted to be – 

Buffy screamed.

Xander's head came up with a jolt and he stopped dead in his tracks. He had been watching his feet, thinking deeply, his pace slowing down imperceptibly – 

The tree was attacking Buffy! 

It looked like a dying oak tree, with neither leaves nor acorns hanging from its limbs. But one of those limbs was wrapped firmly around the Slayer's waist. And slowly, oh so slowly it was moving her closer and closer to an ugly looking mouth that had opened up in its trunk.

"Buffy!" Xander screamed and began to run. He slung the Mossberg from his shoulder and fumbled with it until he had it held at port arms. 

Now he was sprinting, putting everything he had into the run. Faster, faster, he had to go faster!

Xander's breath was thunder in his ears.

Forty yards away now and Buffy was still screaming. It wasn't the scream of a little girl in trouble. It was the angry scream of a leopard protecting her young. Her stone knife was gripped with two hands and she was stabbing into the gripping limb again and again, her motion almost a blur. She screamed her anger and frustration at the tree, her wild blonde hair whipping in the wind. The tree opened its mouth a little wider and gave a low rumbling moan. Good, she was hurting it. If it could be hurt, maybe it could be killed. 

Twenty yards now and Xander's hands were sweaty and slick on the wooden stock of the Mossberg. Fifteen yards and Xander pumped the action to put a shell in the chamber. Ten yards and he thumbed off the safety while his index finger slipped inside the trigger guard. Xander screamed a rebel yell as he shouldered the shotgun. Point blank range, there was an evil stench of rotting flesh coming from its ugly mouth, Xander aimed the shotgun right down its throat 

"HAVE SOME SUCKA!" Xander screamed as he pulled the trigger.

Click.

Misfire.

Xander swore a silent oath. He pumped the action again in a fury, aiming and pulling the trigger in a single motion. This one was no dud. The Mossberg boomed and gave an angry kick into his shoulder. The tree reacted with a moaning gurgle in its throat. The entire tree shivered evilly, its bare limbs wriggling with disgusting animation.

Xander gave a ruthless grin, "Yeah, that's gotta hurt!" 

Xander was grinning wider and about to pump the Mossberg's action when his ankle exploded with pain.

Another limb of the deadly tree had closed on him with the grip of a python. It had slowly snuck behind him while his attention was on blasting its damn mouth with buckshot.

"Uhn!" Xander grunted, suddenly flat on his back, as the tree took his legs out from under him. The thump to the ground stole his wind and slammed the Mossberg from his sweaty grip. Xander was suddenly struggling for breath and desperately straining to grip the stock of the shotgun. It was just out of reach, but now the tree was pulling him away from salvation.

"Xander!" Buffy screamed, "Xander! No!"

Gasping like a fish out of water, Xander rolled his eyes to look at Buffy. She was still hacking away with one hand at the limb around her waist, but she was looking at Xander feverishly as she kicked and struggled to get free. The tree was no longer pulling her closer to its mouth, she was just held where she was. Maybe she would be dessert, as it looked like Xander was about to become the main course.

Xander's leg was elevated above his head as the tree got ready to swallow him whole. Xander planted his free leg against the trunk by its mouth, but the tree was inexorably strong.

Buffy gave a new scream, one of triumph. Xander turned to look just as Buffy severed the limb. She fell towards the ground, then twisted her body like a cat to land in a three-point stance. The severed limb fell from her waist and twisted grotesquely on the ground like the tail of a lizard. Buffy paid it no mind, she re-gripped her stone knife and attacked the limb that had a hold of Xander's ankle, screaming like a banshee all the while.

"Buffy, no!" Xander yelled as he continued his life-and-death tug of war with his own leg.

Buffy just kept attacking the limb with reckless abandon.

"NO BUFFY!" Xander roared.

The Slayer looked at him as if he'd lost his mind.

"The shotgun! Get the shotgun!"

She tilted her head, not understanding.

"My bang-stick! The big boom-stick! Bring it to me!"

At last she understood. In a moment, she was back holding it out to him, barrel first, right in his face.

Xander gulped and took it from her, groaning from the pain in his leg. Awkwardly he swung it around and pointed the barrel past his combat boot into the tree's mouth. He held the trigger down and began pumping rounds into the chamber. At the first boom the tree wriggled and shivered again, groaning with pain. The next shell was another dud, it only fizzled and shot sparks out of the barrel. Xander pumped again. "BOOYAH!" The Mossberg sang its music to Xander's ears. The tree screamed in agony. Xander kept pumping away; there was another sweet boom from the Mossberg, then another and another.

And the tree let him go. 

Buffy immediately pulled him across the ground until they were well out of the tree's reach. They fell to the ground together and turned to look back at the death throes of their attacker. The tree shivered and groaned disgustingly as it slowly curled up on itself like an injured spider. Soon it was just a quivering ball stuck in the ground. 

Xander's head fell backwards into Buffy's lap. He closed his eyes and panted in triumph, a little smile on his face.

And then the world ended.

Time stood still.

The universe stopped on a dime.

Buffy kissed him.

She had one hand under his head; her fingers twined in his hair, her other had under his chin as she forced her mouth onto his. 

Her lips soft, her mouth wet and hungry, she was devouring him, mind, body and soul. 

Then it was over. 

Xander opened his eyes. Her face was right above his. Her eyes were hypnotic, gleaming out at him from her charcoal mask. She had a sly smile on her pouty lips. Xander felt himself shiver as he lay in her arms. His hand came up to touch her cheek – 

Bam! She stood up suddenly and Xander's head banged into the turf.

"Ouch!" Xander blinked and stared up into the Hell's non-sky. He heard Buffy scream in triumph and then there was a shuffling sound of feet. Xander sat up, rubbing the back of his head in pain. 

There was Buffy. She was dancing, her tiny moccasins kicking dust from the hard ground. She was singing, but there were no lyrics, just vowel sounds coming from her throat. She had her stone knife in her hand, and she kept jabbing it in the direction of the stricken tree. It was like a cross between a Maori HAKA and a cheerleading routine. 

She was a joy to look at, simple and pure in her beauty. Xander's head snapped back and he laughed out loud.

He wished the moment would never end.


	5. Incarnations

TITLE: Abandon All Hope 

AUTHOR: Lucky13

EMAIL: lucky13@quixnet.net

DISCLAIMER: Joss is da man, but inspiration came from the works of: Dante Alighieri, Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle, John Byrne & Chris Claremont, Sam & Ivan Raimi, Colleen McCullough, Phillipe Jose Farmer, Roger Zelazny and Ozmandayus. Yes, YOU - the more I look at it, the more I realize that my best stuff happens when I try to write like you, you're my hero, my brotha-of-a-notha-motha.

JUMPING OFF POINT: Early Season Four – Post-Angel, no Anya, no Riley, no Dawn, no Tara.

DEDICATION: R. Brian Peeples, Chorlton, Matt Hutton, Xandman, and a most soulful shout out to my two angels of mercy and heavenly beauty, Lori Bush and Jennifer Hallmark…one's married and the other lives in Guam…Maybe my handle should be Unlucky13…sigh…

CHAPTER FIVE: Incarnations

The Plain of Jars, Hell.

With a jump-start from Willow's mystic brazier, the firewood they had gathered from around the deadly tree guttered into flame. Xander's smile was winsome; he'd still like to go back and burn that damned tree into the ground and salt the earth. They had dug a small pit at the bottom of the depression that the Scoobies had landed in using the battleaxe that Buffy had brought from Earth. 

Xander looked across the fire at the still unconscious Willow. She was as close to the fire as they'd dared to place her, covered in Xander's knightly tunic. Oz lay next to her, sharing his body heat, his sleepy, slowly blinking, yellow eyes never leaving her face. Giles sat on the other side of Willow, straining his eyes as he read and cross-referenced between two different books. Every once in a while he would lay his hand across Willow's forehead or check her pulse, then he would nod sagely before turning his attention back to his research. The Zeppo was grateful that Giles' portable library had been limited to what he could carry because Xander sure wasn't in a reading mood.

Xander was worried that the fire would draw unwanted attention to their position. Giles had pointed out that they had done all they could to conceal the light, and that in Hell's unending twilight the smoke from the fire was practically invisible. Furthermore, they had no choice, Willow must recover or they could never go home, let alone save Alexa. Xander had to smile when he thought of that name. Willow and Oz would one day have a child and name it after him! Xander felt a little glow just thinking about it. 'I'm going to be an uncle!' he thought. 'Okay, not an actual uncle, but close enough.' 

Xander was still smiling as he returned to his task, trying to clean the Mossberg without a gun cleaning kit. That thought killed his smile in a New York minute. 'Damn, Rory's kit was right there in his gun cabinet,' Xander thought grimly 'why oh why didn't I grab it when I had the chance.' The stock of the Mossberg lay across Xander's lap. He had the barrel off and was trying to clean it. Xander had found a relatively straight stick in the pile of firewood that he and Buffy had gathered.

Buffy…

The small hairs on his neck stood up and his arms turned to goose flesh just thinking about her. The back of his throat was suddenly dry. 'That kiss…' he thought, 'oh no, nope, no way, no how! Xander, you're not going to think about this. That is a direct order! It wasn't real. I mean it was real, but if wasn't really Buffy, so it doesn't count, right? The rules of engagement are the same as Valentine's Day. So keep your hands off the Cave Slayer until she's back to normal.' 

Xander resisted the urge to look at her. She was right there, not two feet away from him. 

Xander thought about their walk back to camp. It seemed like a dream. He hadn't even felt any pain from his ankle. It was just the two of them, walking back to camp, their arms full of firewood. But the way she looked at him, the way she laughed, the thrilling way she carried herself…

'God,' he thought 'you're gushing like a seventh-grader. Stop it, stop it right now, you idiot!'

Xander swallowed hard and went back to his cleaning. He had wrapped a small piece of his raggedy fatigue shirt on one end of his relatively straight stick and he was poking it in and out of the barrel's mouth trying to get – 

"Xander?"

"Huh?" 

Giles was talking to him. Xander looked up, the Watcher had his glasses of and he was pinching the bridge of his nose.

"Yes, Giles?"

"If you don't mind taking the first watch, I think I'll try to get some sleep."

"Umm…Sure, I don't mind."

"You won't fall asleep?"

"I won't fall asleep, I promise."

Giles reached around the fire to hand Xander his wristwatch. "Good, wake me in three hours." Giles folded his glasses up and set them on a book near his head. Then he curled up in his monk's robes to catch some shut-eye. Xander looked at the wristwatch for a moment before he set it down. If time ran differently in Hell was the watch keeping Earth-time or Hell-time? Xander watched the second hand tick away for awhile. It seemed completely normal to him. Whatever laws governing time in Hell seemed to apply as equally to the watch as to him. Xander was just glad it hadn't been transformed into an hourglass or a sundial during the trip. 

Buffy giggled.

Xander gave in and looked at her. Buffy was sitting on her heels; the remnants of Xander's fatigue shirt draped over her shoulders. Xander guessed that her Cave Slayer physique (or was it her mindset?) made her nearly impervious to the cold wind, but his chivalrous nature couldn't stand to see her half-naked. So there she sat, happily playing with her own cross bow, figuring out how its mechanics worked. Whatever it was that had happened to them in getting here may have wiped her mind almost clean, but she was just as sharp as ever. 

Still, Xander missed talking to his friend. He might be falling in love with this Cave Slayer version of her (there was no getting around the truth) but he missed his friend. He missed Buffy. What made it worse was that she was right here and he couldn't even – 

"Xander?"

Xander looked up. The Slayer had moved even closer to him. He realized his mouth was open and he closed it with an almost audible click.

"Y-y-yes Buffy?"

"What make stick boom?"

"Um, these do." Xander fished in the front pocket of his fatigue pants for a moment, and then he handed her a shell.

She did that tilt with her head as she looked at it. "Magic?"

"No, not magic. It's mechanical, just like your cross bow."

"How?"

"Well…Fire burns, right?"

"Yes, fire burns."

"But the fire needs wood or it goes out, right?"

"Fire needs wood, yes."

He reached out and took the shell back from her. "There's a special powder in here that burns like wood, only much faster and hotter than wood. The stick provides a spark and the powder burns so fast and hot that it explodes."

"What is 'explodes'?"

"Sorry, 'explodes' means that it goes 'boom'."

"Xander?"

"Yes?"

"Why stick not boom?"

"Huh?"

"You point stick at tree but stick not boom. You point stick at tree and stick boom. Why stick not boom?"

"I don't know, I wish I did. Maybe something's wrong with the shells, like moisture."

"What 'moisture'?"

"Moisture is wetness…Umm…Moisture is like water, but not so much."

There was a moment of quiet, just the sound of crackling from the fire, and the soft snoring coming from the already sleeping Giles. Buffy just sat there looking at him with her eyes glinting in the firelight. Finally, Xander couldn't look at her anymore. He dropped his eyes and started cleaning the Mossberg again

"Xander?" Her voice was soft and rough, like a kitten's tongue.

"Yes?" Xander kept his head down. In his frustration, he was jamming his cleaning stick faster and faster into the barrel of the Mossberg.

"Make Buffy go boom…"

"Wh-wha-what? Huh? What?" Xander was caught like a deer in the headlights. She was suddenly kneeling next to him. Xander's shirt fell from her shoulders, pooling on the back of her calves. Firelight played on her taut thighs and splendid abdomen. Xander had an immediate reaction…An immediate PHYSICAL reaction. Blushing furiously, he turned away from her and fumbled at reassembling the Mossberg with shaky hands.

"Buffy, now, come on –"

Buffy leaned into his back and hummed deep in her throat. She rubbed her cheek against his ear while her hands snaked over Xander's shoulders to his chest. Her throaty whisper was in his ear, "Mmmmm…X-x-xanderrrr…mmmmm…" 

When she commenced to nibble on his ear lobe, Xander quietly lost his mind. His torso jumped and shook of its own volition and the Mossberg tumbled from his senseless hands. His eyelids closed and he bit his lip. "Buffy… don't…tickles…"

She shifted suddenly to the front of his body in one fluid movement. Her arms wrapped around his neck. She tightened her hold on him just long enough to wrap her legs around his midsection. She nestled into him, pressing herself to him. His hands lodged into the ground to keep the two of them from falling backward, his arms trembling uncontrollably. Then she started kissing him; tiny butterfly kisses; on his eyelids, his cheekbones, the side of his nose, the corner of his mouth. In between the kisses, Xander's will to resist struggled for life, it came out in a desperate whisper, "no…Buffy…stop…wake the others…shouldn't…wrong…stop…" She stopped kissing him to snuggle her lithe form even closer to his. She put her mouth to his ear to whisper her own mantra of passion, her breath starting to come in little hitches as she writhed in his lap. "Xander…Buffy…moisture…Make Buffy explode, Xander…Make Buffy go boom…"

Xander's arms let go and together they tumbled backwards onto the grass. Buffy giggled and placed her face directly over his. Xander's hands came up and caught the sides of her face. Her eyes closed and her head moved back and forth, luxuriate in the feel of his touch. Then her eyes opened again and looked directly into his. There was a predatory look to them, the way a cat eyes a mouse. Xander didn't like it and he loved it all at the same time. But it was a little too much Faith and not enough Buffy. This wasn't right, this was wrong, he had to be strong, he had to resist, and he had to -

Buffy pounced.

Her hungry mouth descended onto his, and for the second time she kissed him. His will to resist her melted away and he kissed her back with equal passion. His mind on fire, he rolled her onto her back. He lay on his side with one hand holding the back of her head as he kissed her, his elbow supporting his weight. The other hand took possession of her ribcage, just under her breast. Buffy arched her back; the ragged nails of one hand digging into his neck, while her other hand explored and tantalized his masculinity through the fatigue pants.

It was about the third time that Willow cleared her throat that finally got their attention.

Xander rolled away from Buffy and sat up blushing furiously. Buffy just got up on her elbows and gave Willow a pouty look. Xander realized that a good friend of his was still making his presence known. He grabbed his fatigue shirt off the ground and bunched it up in his lap. He couldn't look at Willow; he couldn't…

"Really Xander," said the witch in a stage whisper, "What if Giles woke up? You're lucky he's a sound sleeper. You could have at least gone to the other side of the hill." 

"Will I – I'm sorry – I - I - I –"

"Xander shush, or you really will wake up Giles up, and I want him to get some rest. So should the two of you, if you can manage to keep your hands off of each other long enough." Finally he looked at her, shocked once more by her adult appearance and demeanor. She was lying on her side, looking at him over Giles' sleeping form. The disapproval on her face was strictly for show, beneath it was obvious affection and…the barest hint of something else; some emotion that Xander couldn't quite put his finger on…

"Xander, you don't have to make excuses. I'm not a little girl anymore. I'm a wife and a mother." Xander noticed that her hand was gently stroking the side of Oz' face where it lay on her hip. The half-wolf closed his eyes when the witch began to scratch him behind the ear.

"But it's not right, I shouldn't have, she's not herself – "

Willow sighed, "But she is, she's…Oh well, we better wake up Giles, I don't want to have to make this explanation twice."

Buffy's elbows let go and she collapsed backward into the grass, then she growled.

*****************************************

After Giles' had been woken up, the five had broken bread together, sharing the food that each had brought from home. Giles was obviously still half-asleep through out the meal, but he kept doing double takes at Buffy and Xander. 

Buffy had obviously staked her territory and Xander was hers. She sat so close to him at the meal that she was practically in his lap. She fussed over him, feeding him small bites of her food and taking small bites from his. Xander didn't quite know what to do, so he mostly tried to ignore her attentions. When Giles would look over with confusion and worry writ large on his face, Xander just tried to look innocent, with a 'hey-what-can-a-guy-do-?' expression on his face. It was all very confusing and exhausting. Then, as the meal was ending, Willow began her explanation. 

"Heaven and Hell exist apart from all other realities. Yet they are the two poles: North and South, Fire and Water, Yin and Yang, Plus and Minus, Order and Chaos. They exist at either end of the multiverse, always opposing, always dividing, always creating, and always destroying. One cannot exist without the other; such is the nature of the universe." Willow paused for a breath; she was obviously still exhausted. "In between are the Realities; the Worlds; the different Dimensions that make up the multiverse; they are countless and uncounted. Every possibility exists within them. In the Center is the Nexus; it is the Balancing Point; the Crossroads between Dimensions. Such is the Supernature of the Multiverse; Forever and Unending; Blessed Be, Amen."

Willow paused again, this time taking a sip from Xander's canteen. Giles had been scribbling notes in his journal as she talked. "So these Realities include parallel Dimensions, such as the one Anya created?"

"The power to create a Reality does not lie within one such as Anyanka or even her former master D'Hoffryn. They only delude themselves and others into thinking that. No, that Reality already existed, Anyanka merely opened a doorway and imported it into our own when Cordelia made her Wish. The point is that in the myriad of Dimensions in the Multiverse, there are those that are more hellish, more given to evil, and there are those that are more good and are more aligned with the heavenly plane. Also, there are Dimensions nearer to the Nexus; these are the Middle Worlds; the battleground for the Eternal Struggle between the Forces of Light and the Forces of Darkness."

Giles froze in mid-scribble to blink at Willow, "…Earth…"

The Witch nodded, "So it has been since Order was raised from the Chaos that preceded it. And we, the mortal beings of the Middle Worlds, are both participants and prize in this struggle. For it is in our ability to choose between Good and Evil that the battle is fully joined. And after our race is run and Death claims us, our souls are weighed by the Scales of the Cosmos and sent on to that sphere that has the tightest grip on our Hearts; either Heaven or Hell."

Giles again, "So you're saying that evil-doers are actually punished for eternity here? That's mostly considered poppycock – "

"Yes, the souls of mortals who chose evil are punished here. Some have been here for thousands of years. Whether or not it is ETERNAL punishment is unknown and unknowable."

"But why, what purpose does it serve?"

"I have no answer for you, it is just the way things are. It is said by some that even Heaven and Hell are not the Ultimate Realities, but merely shadows themselves, of a greater and even more complex pattern.

"So you're saying that BLAH-blah blah-blah-blah, blah-blah-BLAH-blah-blah, blah-blah-BLAH and BLAH-BLAH-blah…"

Xander's head hurt just listening to them. Buffy had slumped against Xander like she was about to slide into dreamland and Oz was sniffing at the ground. Xander couldn't take any more so he jumped right into the middle of WHATEVER Giles was going on about. "But Wills, what's with the costume-thing? What's with Giles' hair? Why is Buffy One Million BC and why is Oz a sudden candidate for MAJOR electrolysis? What's the what here?"

Giles looked startled and Willow smiled at him, "I was about to get to that, I swear!" Then she suddenly looked very tired as she took another sip of water. "Heaven and Hell are designed to accept only the essences, the souls of mortals beings. When the soul is transmuted here, a hellish body and mind is formed to receive it. Those bodies are not like ours; they are mystical rather than physical in nature, they regenerate constantly so that the soul may receive constant punishment."

"Willow, that's horrible!"

"Yes it is Giles, but this IS Hell after all. Did you think it would be pleasant here? Anyway, the point is that we transported ourselves to Hell with our physical bodies and minds intact, along with our souls. The Hell Dimension has responded to that by transforming us slightly. We have become Incarnations of our dominant essences; it should only be a temporary condition, our forms should be restored to us once we leave Hell."

"Run that by me again?"

"I came here in my eighteen-year-old body, but my twenty-eight-year-old-mind is dominant, so Hell has transformed me. As a Wiccan, my mind and will are finely attuned to the Multiverse through my use of magic, so this body reflects that; it is exactly who and what I am. As a werewolf, Oz' dominant essence is that of the Wolf, and so he was transformed along those lines."

"What about Buffy?"

"She is the Slayer."

"Uh, yeah, not exactly a news bulletin."

"You miss my point. She has taken on the aspects of THE Slayer, the First and Primal Slayer, the Essence that travels from young girl to young girl at the death of her predecessor. But neither she nor Oz was wholly transformed. Oz is still Oz; he is not fully the Wolf. He knows me, he knows all of you, and he knows why he is here. The same goes for Buffy. Some of her knowledge has been stripped from her, as well as the veneer of civilization, but she is still Buffy, with Buffy's thoughts and her feelings intact."

That little comment sent Xander's mind to whirling.

"Well, that explains the three of you, but Xander and I are not Supernatural beings."

"No, but you came here in a spell with Supernatural beings, so Hell interpreted you as best it could."

"But why a monk?"

"I don't know, but weren't many Watchers in the Middle Ages drawn from their ranks?"

"Well, yes, I suppose they were. Records had to be kept, and Friars were some of the only literate people in medieval society."

"There you are."

"But what about me, Wills?"

"You Xander, with your chivalrous nature. Going out night after night to fight with no training or powers, sallying forth against overwhelming odds. Why would you be a knight?"

Xander had no answer he just looked back and forth between Giles and Willow. They both looked at him with small knowing smiles. Buffy gave a tiny wheeze; she had fallen asleep against his arm. Oz raised his head to sniff the strange smells of Hell…

"…Oh boy…"


End file.
